How the Tale is Told

Thereover the moor and heath and heather
there comes a ringing and a singing from a voice
that needs no announcement beyond itself
for surely you know how the tale is told.
All the roses, red and white, sway in the morning
and in the light they seem to glimmer with dew
but it's only diamonds on their petals
left there by those weeping souls
who know how the tale is told.
And in the gloaming there are whispers
that ought by rights to be howlings
as the wolves are cowed into a false obedience
by those specters of another life, another death,
who heard how the tale is told.
Tells the tale within itself
of the wolves, the roses, the nights, the gloaming,
for any who would hear and listen and know
how the tale is told.